Nashwan:
As you sort of dodged the question last time, can I ask it again straight out?I'd be suprised if I dodged it, but then I don't really remember "last time" specifically.
1. Do you believe all methods of killing are equally effective, in particular do you think a knife is as effective a way of killing as a gun, in most circumstances? (Not under certain conditions, but on average)For the "average" person, a gun would be more effective as a killing tool than a knife. We all know, however, that dead is dead and either tool can make you dead in a hurry.
2. Do you believe that making people use less effective ways of killing, ie making killing harder, will lead to less murders, or not?There are several assumptions here and more than one question.
The first assumption is that you can "make people use less effective ways of killing". How do you do that exactly? Ban guns? You folks tried that and apparently assumed that would make killing harder. However, it's clear that not everyone gave up their guns (you still have gun homicides).
It's also clear that while you may believe you have made it harder, the killers apparently switched modalities without any problems; the rate of knife murders went up to compensate.
Finally, the overall murder rate remains about the same pre-ban and post-ban.
So, to directly answer your question using the UK stats, it might make killing a little harder but I'm not certain that inescapably leads to "less murders".
I think here in the US there might be an initial drop in the murder rate
IF you could confiscate ALL guns but obviously that's as impossible for us as it has been for you. Further, I certainly believe that the criminals deprived of guns would switch modalities as necessary in any event.
The end result? I think the US homicide rate would stay stable, just as your has done.
To take it to it's logical conclusion, and to use Archie Bunker's example, do you think if the only way to murder someone was to push them out of a window, there would be as many murders in the US as there currently are?Without delving into this particular scenario, I think that each society has a decades old "societal norm" for homicide.
England has had essentially the same homicide rate, with minor fluctuations for decades, hasn't it? Both BEFORE and AFTER the gun ban and despite restrictions on "sharp instruments". Seems clear to me that the changes in your laws did not affect your homicide rate.
I think we a similar situation here but ours is improving somewhat. Our homicide rate has been high, higher than the world "norm" for decades. We added LOTS fo gun control law without any real affect on lowering homicide rates. OTOH, when we added laws that severely punished criminals using guns in crime, our rates dropped. Further, our rates are continuing to slowly drop without denying law-abiding citizens the right to own handguns or other firearms or knives.
From the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, January-June 2004
Collectively, law enforc ement agencies throughout the United States reported a decrease of 2.0 percent in the number of violent crimes brought to their attention in the first 6 months of 2004 when compared to figures reported for the first half of 2003. The violent crime category includes murder, forcible rape,
robbery, and aggravated assault.
This report shows murder down 5.7%.
Now, I have ask you again:
Considering that your gun homicide rate is really essentially unchanged despite all of your draconian confiscations, bans and prohibitions, what was the point of denying all the law-abiding folks the right to have handguns?
The post-Hungerford and Dunblane laws did essentially nothing. How do you justify all the expense, paperwork and denial of shooting sports to law-abiding folks based on the total lack of results?
Why do you feel that FURTHER bans/restrictions/confiscations will have a different result?
